Four years ago I said hi to a certain lady on social media and she became my friend. I found her in a group. I tapped on her DP and ended up going through all her photos. “She’s a beautiful girl too,” I said to myself. So that day when I was sending her a message in her inbox, I knew what I was looking for; I was looking for friendship that would grow into something serious—like a long-term relationship. I asked where she lived and she said Sunyani. She asked where I lived and I said Accra. She said, “Wow, all my dreams is to move to Accra and settle there for good. I’m tired of this place already. I’ve lived all my life here and is getting boring.”

I said, “Accra is a no man’s land. Everybody lives here and you can come live here too. All you need to do is to pack your things and move here.” She said, “I need a reason. I need an opportunity that would take me there. That’s why I picked Greater Accra as my National service destination. All I’m praying for is for them to post me there.” I said something like, “When they post you here, you wouldn’t have to worry about accommodation. You can come live where I live without paying any rent.”

I wasn’t joking when I said I would give her accommodation. I lived in a five-bedroom apartment that belonged to my parents who had traveled abroad. She was very excited about the idea. She said, “Now that my accommodation issues are sorted, I can pray harder for them to post me to Accra. Months later, the postings came. She checked and she was posted to one of the Metro Assemblies in Accra. She called me, very excited, she said, “I got it! I got it!” I knew exactly what she was talking about so I said, Congratulations. Can’t wait to see you.”

Three days later, she was in Accra to do her registration. I met her for the very first time at the bus station. She was as beautiful as I saw her in the photos. I said, “You look better in person than in photos.” She said, “Really? Upon all the makeups and filters in my photos?” I said, “Yeah, you’re very good-looking just the way you are right at this very moment.” She smiled and said, “You flatter me.” I took her to her center and waited for her to go through all the registration processes. I had to lie to my superiors to take the day off to be with her. When we finally got home, I took her to the room I prepared for her. All this while, I hadn’t proposed to her. I’d said some things and done many things that made it obvious that I would like to date her but I hadn’t said anything to her.

The day she finally came to settle in Accra to begin her service, I shot my shot and she said, “I was beginning to wonder if you were a catholic priest. What took you so long?” I said, “Time is what we take when it comes to issues like this. You had your mind on your service and I needed to help you get through it first.” With a huge smile on her face, she said, “I’ve been waiting for this and now that it’s here, I can’t say no.” We became lovers living in the same house but in different rooms. One late night around 11pm, she walked into my room with only cloth covering her up. She said, “I’m coming for ‘salomey’”

That was the first time we slept in the same room till morning. It was already one and a half months since she accepted my proposal. We were the birds of the same feathers the idiom told you about. I told my parents about her and each time they called, they spoke to her. When my parents brought things from abroad, they added hers to it; clothes, makeup kits, dresses, perfumes, phones, shoes, bags. Just name them. I knew I’d found the woman created from my lost ribs until things began to change.

She started coming home late citing busy schedules at the office. One night, a Camry came to drop her home, the next night it was Jeep that brought her home. She started going to work on Saturdays and started going to Sunyani every weekend. I asked her about the cars that brought her home and she said they were good samaritans who offered her a lift. She started closing her doors whenever she was inside. I had to ask permission before I could go inside. I started getting uncomfortable.

One weekend she said she was visiting her parents at Sunyani. I said, “This weekend I have nothing to do so I would go with you.” She said, “You’ll be going with me as what? My parents don’t know you yet so I can’t just go with you like that. They are very strict. They won’t tolerate the idea that I’m living with you here.” I said all I could but this girl said no. She didn’t go with me. She went and came back. The following weekend too, she went and came back. One time when she went, I didn’t see her until Monday night. One day, I contacted his junior brother on Facebook and through conversation, I intentionally asked about her sister. He said, “My sister is doing her service in Accra and she’s never been home since she left.”

When she came back home that Sunday evening, I asked where she went and she said, “Didn’t I tell you I was going to Sunyani?” I showed her the chat between me and her brother. That night, hell broke loose. “If you don’t trust me then why are you dating me? Why should you talk to my brother? If I don’t go home then where do I go? What are you trying to tell me?” I apologized to her and calmed her down. For a month, she didn’t allow me to touch her just because I spoke to her brother. She kept coming home with the Samaritans; Lexus, Toyota V8, Highlander, Range Rover. Different cars and different colors each day,

“So these are all good samaritans?”

“You know these men. Yes, they try to get my number after dropping me but I don’t give it to them. Trust me.”

I loved her too much I didn’t want to probe or get her angry. Four months before the end of her national service, I went to her room and she had packed everything from there. She said, “I’ve saved enough money to rent my own place. I’m leaving.” I didn’t say a word. One of the samaritans came for her and they left with her belongings. It was hard explaining to my parents what happened. It was even harder for me to accept that a girl could be that ungrateful. A year later we bumped into each other at the mall. She took me to her car. Toyota Rav4. She said, “You see what God can do in a very short time? You see? I’m right I left your place to look for my own bread. See growth.”

Currently, she’s one of the popular slay queens who call themselves influencers. She’s been able to amass large followers on social media, selling organic sex drugs to women. Sometimes I see her on the explore page, traveling to different cities and different countries. She’s doing well; flaunting cars, houses and gadgets and captioning them, “It’s the doing of the Lord.” She looks happy.

—Agoe